Improvement in water-wheels



UNITED STATES PATENT EEICE.

RODNEY HUNT, OF ORANGE, MASSACHUSETTS, ASSIGNOR TO THE RODNEY HUNT MACHINE COMPANY, OF SAME PLACE.

IMPROVEMENT IN WATER-WHEELS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 156,224, dated October 27,1874; application filed 4 September 16, 1874.

To all lwhom it may concern;

Beit known that I, RoDNEY HUNT, of Orange, of the county of Franklin, of the State of Massachusetts, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Turbines; and do hereby declare the same to be fully described in guiar, trapezoidal, or tapering, or to increase in width from its bottom to its top, such being to prevent waste of water at part-gate, and to direct the efliuent stream to better advantage upon the buckets ofthe wheel.

The drawings show a double-acting turbine, of which the wheel proper is exhibited at A, provided, as usual, with a verticalA shaft, B, whose foot is pivotedin a step, a. This step is supported by a spider, C, having its arms projecting from and fixed to the draft-tube D of the wheel-case. E. It encompasses the wheel, and is arranged to play or move up and down between it and the guide G, and in other turbines of the kind is or should be provided with mechanism for moving it. The guide G is composed of two iat rings, b c, and a series of The gate is represented atV vertical partitions, d, arranged between and extended from one to the other of said rings, in. manner as shown.

vIn turbines of the kind heretofore in use, it has been customary to make either rectangular or square the inner end of each water-passage between the partitions of the guide, whereby at half-gate orless a considerable portion of the water flowing through and from each passage, instead of passingV directly' to the wheel, became lost or spurted downward around it, without acting on its buckets, thereby causing a loss of useful etfect.

To prevent this loss, I make the discharging end of each Water-passage e of the guide triangular or trapezoidal, or, in other words, increasing in width from bottom to top, as shown in Fig. 4, or more particularly in Fig. 5 at f g h c'. This latter figure exhibits two of the passages on an enlarged scale.

It has been demonstratedin practice that, with the eduction endof each water-passage of the gate made tapering, as described, or to increase in width from the bottom to the top,

a very material saving of water, and a greater useful effect, results.

I therefore claim- In the turbine, the veduction end of each water-passage e of the guide G, made tapering,`or to increase in width from its lower to its upper end, all'being substantially as specied.

EODNEY HUNT.

Witnesses:

R. H. EDDY, S. N. PIPER. 

